World Battlefronts: Jap in a Trap

General Hatazo Adachi was in a trap. Since General MacArthur's leapfrog
landings along the New Guinea coast at Aitape and Hollandia last April
22, his Eighteenth Army had been hemmed between the sea to the north,
Australians to the east, mountains to the south and Americans to the
west. Adachi had seen his force dwindle from 60,000 to 45,000 (round
numbers estimated at General MacArthur's headquarters), as a result of
daily bombings and disease hastened by hunger.

There was no room for Adachi to maneuver in the 7-mile-wide corridor of
swamp and jungle. But anything was better than death by stagnation....